


Taste Of Arsenic

by EffingEden



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-19
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:38:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EffingEden/pseuds/EffingEden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the things Jim never said, 'I am lost without my Basher' is the truest one of all</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taste Of Arsenic

There were some things he let his tiger get away with. Subtle shows of disrespect, slight deviances from orders, keeping secrets that weren’t really but Seb never had to know – small things. Moran was a wild thing after all, and would tear himself to pieces again if he was kept on too short a leash. And yet this was too far.

 

Defiance was entertaining. Neglect was unacceptable.

 

Not one word had come in. No text. No email. Nothing, for twenty-eight hours, seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds. Thirty-three. Thirty-four.

 

_If you’re on a bender, I’m going to but the shock collar on you. Get here, now. -JM_

 

Jim concentrated on a few projects for the next half an hour as he waited, and set up a meeting with a mister John Clay, a school mate of Sebastian from his days at Eton. Arrogant little twit, but he would have a use. And still, Sebastian kept his silence.

 

Well then, if his tiger wanted to be hunted down, Jim was happy to oblige. He slid on his coat, and a pair of Seb’s sun glasses and called Sebastian’s mobile as he rode the lift down to ground level.

 

He was put through to voice mail right away – that meant the phone was turned off. Seb never, ever did that. What game was he playing? “Sweetheart,” he purred, his tone all razor blades and venom, “I thought you knew better. Tut tut. Ready or not, here I come, Sebby.” He disconnected and slid the phone back into his breast pocket, turning his head side to side. Oh, Sebastian was going to scream and scream for this.

 

><><><>< 

 

  For all the time Sebastian spent at Jim’s apartment, he had kept his old address. It was in Whitechapel, a disgusting little flat in a disgusting block and it rubbed Jim up the wrong way to even look at it. How could Sebastian stand living in such cramped conditions, dozens of other people pressing in from all sides?

 

He’d asked once and the man had rolled his shoulders in a shrug, and said in his deep drawl, “It’s just a place, Jim.”

 

Just a place. Just a place he wasn’t going to have after today. Bomb it? Burn it down? Anything to remove the blight from London’s cityscape. But first, he had to see if his wayward tiger was indulging his numerous vices inside.

 

Jim had a key, which was lucky – the doors all faced the street and there was little privacy to pick the lock. The door was a white, plastic monstrosity. He was reluctant to touch it even with his gloved hand, but to get to Sebastian... yes, he’d do it.

 

He didn’t call out as he stepped inside the dim hallway, his eyes adjusting to the darkness as he closed the door. There was sounds, coming from the flat below. A pulse of music. A harried conversation. A child screaming above and to the right. Nothing closer. The smell of cigarette smoke clung to the air, faint and ghostly. Someone had smoked here, recently. A stack of post an inch deep had been dropped on the arm of the tatty sofa in the living room. None had been opened.

 

For a heartbeat, Jim wished he could see with Sherlock Holmes' eyes, read the traces Seb had left behind. How long ago had it been since Sebastian had been here? No doubt the Virgin would be able to tell by the flakes of ash on the TV remote and the ring of tea on the side table. Jim could see some things, but not like Sherlock could. No, his method was digging up facts. It took more time, more effort, but gave him something a lot more solid to work with.

 

He shook his head and moved further into the graceless flat, passing a kitchen with a dirty pan in the sink and a take out leaflet stuck to the fridge, a bathroom with a towel abandoned on the floor and a straight razor next to an electric toothbrush. The last room was, of course, a bedroom.

 

At first, Jim didn’t see it. His focus was on the rumpled bed. Seb had slept here, Jim was certain. The scent of the man was locked in the sheets. He jerked the quilt off the bed, checking his tiger hadn’t been stupid enough to fuck someone in his little rebellion. No, no stain of a wet patch. Well, that just meant if he had fucked, he’d not done so in bed.

 

Seb’s clothes of the day before were in a small pile, shirt and trousers and socks and shoes all left to crease – but at least he had hung his blazer properly. A book lay on the bedside table, titled ‘Life Of Pi’ (Jim’s eyes narrowed at it, sure a tiger in a boat had sod all to do with Pi) and then... then he saw the sleek phone he made Seb carry, laying o the floor.

 

Blood roared in his ears, and his own heart beat was the clash of thunder. The world twisted and the shadows pulsed deeper.

 

There were two possibilities for that phone being where Seb wasn’t. One was that Sebastian had decided to cut and run - and no, no, NO that wasn’t who Sebastian was, that wasn’t how he worked, but Jim still preferred that one to the second option. Seb running was better than Seb caught. That was the only other option, and Jim couldn’t think if he suspected someone else getting his tiger.

 

There was going to be so much pain.

 

It took a while before he could get his phone out of his pocket. He flicked it open and punched in a number. He didn’t know the name of the woman who picked up, but she was able to hack almost any surveillance archive in the Western world, and that was what he needed right now. “Get me the location of Sebastian Moran. Get it to me within the hour or I will eviscerate you and feed you your own insides.”

 

He hung up on the sound of her choking on a mouthful of red bull and walked over to Seb’s phone, crouching down. There was a crack in the touch screen, a small pressure fracture. Someone had stepped on it – probably by accident. It turned on when he pressed the button, but there was a black bar running through the display, and it didn’t register the pressure of his finger as he tried to type the password. No matter. He slid the device into his pocket and found a stash of Seb’s cigarettes. Smoking wasn’t a habit of his, not since his mid twenties, but the taste of the smoke offered him some calm.

 

He would find Seb and punish him. He’d put a GPS tracker under his skin. Maybe two, just to be safe. And anyone who had touched him would have their eyeballs introduced to Seb's straight razor. He would ruin their senses one by one until they couldn’t see or hear or taste or smell, and then he would slowly pry the skin from their muscle in thin strips. He would make a human leather flogger and use it on the thief’s open, bleeding flesh.

 

And then he’d turn it on Seb, for making him fret. 


End file.
